


anything lasts forever

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Angst, Face Punching, Feelings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In times of stress, people fall back on bad habits. They're on tour, and Tom is stressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anything lasts forever

In times of stress, people fall back on bad habits.

The way Danielle says it is in times of _weakness_ , but Tom doesn’t feel weak, exactly. He feels tired. And stressed. And, like, massively fucking annoyed. So he’s sneaking a cigarette, in an embrace of bad habits, and he’ll take the consequences as they come.

Danielle’s already gone back to New York, so there’s a time lag on the consequences anyway. Not that he would mind if she was here to yell at him. He already misses her. Having her around helps him think. And breathe. And, like. Exist.

Actually, if she was still there, he wouldn’t be smoking at all, because when he got pissed off at the band he could’ve gone to her instead of stomping out to stand in a cold fucking alleyway in fucking Pittsburgh and light up.

The load-in door creaks open and Max sticks his head out. “What are you doing?”

Tom shrugs and exhales smoke through his nose. “Nothing.”

Max squints at him and Tom’s knee starts to jitter.

“We’re breaking down,” Max says finally. Tom has a panicked moment of trying to figure out if that’s an existential statement before Max goes on. “Come help and have a beer.”

“I don’t want a beer.”

Max rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t walk off and leave Tom by himself. He holds the door and waits while Tom drops his cigarette into the slushy mess covering the sidewalk, and waits for Tom to come to him.

“Gotta relax, bro,” Max says quietly. “It’s fine.”

Tom licks the taste of the cigarette off his teeth. “He is being a dick.”

“I know, but… whatever, you know? He’ll get over it. You’ll get over it.”

Tom can’t say anything to that. He will get over it, that’s true.

Max grabs his sleeve and drags him inside. The warmer air makes his nose drip. He wipes it on his sleeve, breathing in the smell of sweat and Camels, then goes to put his guitar away.

Everything is fine, he tells himself, listening to the rattle of Mike packing his cymbals. Everything is fine.

**

Sean is sick. He’s spent the tour so far in the back of the bus with tissues, Nyquil, and the version of a hot toddy that is straight whiskey.

That’s fine with Tom. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, if it’s just the viruses tap-dancing in Sean’s bloodstream, or if it’s the shitty weather that refuses to break, or if the new van has some kind of bad mojo, or… or what. Or anything.

But there is definitely weird, crawling tension between him and Sean. And Sean is definitely being a total dick.

Tom has made up a list of possible reasons and scratched them all out. Sean loves touring; he can’t be grumpy about being back in the van. They’ve toured together and lived in each other’s pockets for years; he can’t be tired of Tom being around all the time. They’re his new songs as much as anybody else’s; if he doesn’t like them it’s way too late to be a jerk about it now.

But there are caveats for all of those: Sean is sick, and being sick in a van blows. Tom wasn’t just around all the time, Tom lived with him and his girlfriend for almost seven fucking months while they were off-tour. They shared bodywash and Tom accidentally ate the last little yogurt thing more than once. He walked in on Sean’s girlfriend while she was peeing. Those things are, objectively, _weird_.

And the new songs are weird. The new album’s weird. The whole process was different, this time. Writing was different, recording was different, sending their ideas for the packaging and the song titles, even, off to Chop Shop before finalizing them was different. Max’s fingerprints aren’t on the final mix. These songs don’t even have Ryan’s ghost in them. This tour is in a van that doesn’t smell like them yet, that doesn’t have scars and memories that match theirs.

Maybe all of that is enough to create tension. Maybe that’s all it is.

Tom’s fingers itch for a cigarette. He looks in the rearview mirror, eyes searching until they find Sean again.

**

They stop at a little gas station in the middle of nowhere.

“We should’ve taken the turnpike,” Mike says, stretching his arms above his head. Tom can hear Mike’s back cracking from the other side of the van. Dude’s a beast. “The rest stops on the turnpike have Starbucks.”

“The turnpike is a fucking rip-off.” Max swipes his credit card and leans against the van, waiting for the pump to catch up. “Back roads are the way to go, bro.”

“Ha.” Mike shakes his head and walks away, digging his phone out of his pocket. Tom squints up at the sky, then glances back into the van from the corner of his eye. Sean has his own phone out, his fingers tapping away. Texting with Kristen, probably. Giving her an update on his mucus.

Tom knocks on the window. “Hey.”

Sean looks up and blinks. His eyes are still bleary, but better than they have been. “What’s up?”

“I’m gonna go get, like… I don’t know. Candy and a coffee, I guess. You want anything?”

Sean rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Dayquil.”

Tom nods. “And hot water?”

“I guess.” Sean sighs. “Hold on, I’ll come with you.”

Sean shuffles up and down the aisles while Tom goes directly to the coffee machine in the corner, then the counter, where he grabs two Milky Ways for himself and a Snickers for Max. He eyes the cigarettes over the attendant’s shoulder, but if he can nurse the same pack for a few days then it’s almost like he’s not really smoking at all.

Sean comes up to join him with his cold meds, a Coke, and a bag of Twizzlers. “Hot water,” Tom prompts.

Sean shakes his head. “Later. Cold feels better right now.”

Tom watches him count dollars out. “You feeling any better in general?”

“I don’t feel totally dead.” Sean glances at him and smiles a little. “So yeah.”

Tom smiles back and tears open one of his Milky Ways. Okay. This is a good start. Maybe it was just Sean feeling shitty all along. “You ready for the fine crowds of Toledo, Ohio?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m ready for, I’m ready to get to Akron where we’ve got some people on our team.”

Tom nods, because yeah, playing at Musica is nice. Mike’s parents look after them. They get showers and a home-cooked meal and they drink free and nobody ever bitches them out about where they left their stuff or what time they show up or whatever. It’s not like playing Chicago, but it’s also not like playing a lot of places they end up.

“You want to do Bang again tonight?” he asks, holding the door for Sean to step back into the cold air of the parking lot. “Close on that?”

Mike won’t say it, but he doesn’t like playing the old songs. The rest of them won’t say it, but they feel weird looking backward. There are a lot of long silences around set lists. Tom kind of wants to write them by Magic 8 Ball from now on.

Sean shrugs. “We’ll figure it out later. That or Bowie, either one’s fine.”

“Bowie’s a little less theatrics, I guess.” Sean shoots him a puzzled look and Tom touches his own throat. “Looking out for your voice.”

Sean smiles again, almost a grin this time. “You’re a prince, Tommy.” He squints at the pumps, where Max is waving at them with both hands, the universal gesture of hurry the fuck up or this van is leaving without you. “I can’t wait to get to Texas, you know? A change in the goddamn weather.”

**

The bar is still locked up when they get to Toledo, which is a bad sign. Leaving shit in the trailer while they wander around the neighborhood makes Tom’s skin itch and his pulse race.

They walk to a McDonalds up the block and have a late lunch, all of them sitting with their phones on the table and their heads angled down. Tom scrolls through Instagram with short, tense flicks of his fingers, staring at pictures of bands and gear and friends of friends. Scimeca’s dog. Max and Danielle’s mom’s dog. Flashback Friday images with dated hair and clothes.

Danielle posted one of the two of them at SXSW 2011. He stares at it for a long time, his finger hovering above the screen. They look just the same, but it was three years ago. He’s smiling. She’s smiling. He remembers that they slow-danced together behind some pop-up venue, his arms around her waist, her hands at the back of his neck, her fingers stretching up into his hair.

He glances at the clock in the corner of the screen and knows she won’t be off work yet. She doesn’t like getting texts at work, either; they worry her. So he turns his phone off and puts it back in his pocket, forcing himself to zoom back in on the here and now.

“I just want, like, decent sound and a decent crowd,” Sean says. “Is it like a rule that all these places have to sound like shit?”

Max snorts. “Dude, they’ve always sounded like shit.”

“Well maybe I’m sick of it,” Sean mutters, slumping in his seat. “Tom, you think we can get in yet?”

“I don’t know.” Tom drains his drink and shrugs. “Let’s walk down and see.”

They couldn’t. Nobody showed up to let them in until an hour before doors, and that was the manager, not the sound guy. “You can do your sound check before your set,” he said, not giving an inch in the face of their annoyance. “It’s no big deal.”

It doesn’t _have_ to be a big deal, but it is; when everything feels super fucked up, having control over the little things turns all weird and desperate and essential. It does for Tom, always, and this tour, for whatever reason, it does for Sean, too.

Sean has what Danielle’s mom would call a conniption fit about it. Tom, Mike, and Max are left blinking, at a loss, when he storms off into the back room that is both beer storage and where the band can hide from the patrons.

Max exhales through clenched teeth. “So. He’s still in a mood.”

“I’m gonna help the other guys load in,” Mike says, and Tom is suddenly, blindingly grateful for the existence of their opening act, because it provides a distraction. “Tom, you want to give me a hand?”

Tom nods and follows him out. The sky is spitting down snow, it’s full dark, and the local potholes are doing their best to swallow every car that goes by.

Fucking Ohio.

**

The show is bad. Not awful, but definitely not good. Tom has it the best of any of them, probably. As long as he can fade back into the corner of the stage, close his eyes, and ride the vibe of his guitar, he doesn’t need anything else. He barely even has to be there.

Sean, though. Gotta feed the beast. Sean needs the audience, he needs the loop of energy going all around the room, he needs... fuck, Tom doesn’t know what he needs. Attention. That’s part of it.

Sean is _pissed_ about the sound check. He’s pissed about the monitors. He’s pissed about how they weren’t all lined up together on “How Good Does It Feel.”

He’s pissed about other things, too, but Tom stops listening, because god, _whatever_ , Sean, it is what it is and it’s over now. They’ll fix it on the next one.

11:30 set times don’t bother Tom very much, since he’s basically nocturnal anyway. They give him time to call Danielle before the show, a rare window on tour where they’re both still awake and not working. The only thing he doesn’t like is when, like tonight, he’s doing load-out at 1 AM in a sketchville neighborhood.

Even better, doing load-out at 1 AM in a sketchville neighborhood while Sean drinks beer with the bassist and complains to the fans about how bad this tour is.

_I am working as hard as I can_ , Tom thinks, clutching his guitar case to his chest. Maybe Sean doesn’t mean him, personally, but how the fuck can anyone tell through the shrill and continuous bitching. _I am doing everything I can do, I’m sorry that’s not good enough for you, asshole._

He walks out into the street again, dragging in a breath of cold air. Mike is leaning against the trailer, tapping on his phone. “Is that the last of it?” he asks without looking up.

“As far as I know.” Tom puts the case in the back and closes up the doors. “Telling your mom we’re on our way?”

“No. She left the door open, we shouldn’t wake her up.” Mike glances up as the last handful of fans leaves the bar. “You want to go get Sean? Max ran up to the McDonalds again with the new kid.”

“The new kid.” Tom shakes his head. “He’s older than Max.”

“He’s still new to me.”

Tom squints up the street, trying to catch a glimpse of the others on their way back. No luck. “Yeah, I’ll go get Van Vleet.”

Sean is leaning on the bar, watching whatever’s on the TV over the bar; Tom looks at it for a minute, but it’s not sports or the weather and he doesn’t have it in him to figure out anything else. “Sean. Let’s go.”

“Already?”

Tom shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We’re all loaded. Come on.”

“I was just about to come help.”

“Well, you missed the window on that one. So just come get in the van.”

Sean squints at him. “You pissed at me or something, Tommy?”

Usually Tom would break eye contact, lower his voice, make sure to make this not a thing. But… fuck it. “I’m tired.”

“The night is young, man.”

“We have to drive for like two hours.”

“Great.” Sean smirks. “We can talk about how much tonight sucked.”

Tom doesn’t mean to sound sharp. He really doesn’t. “Or, we could _not_ talk about that.”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me. It sucked, and we should--”

“You should stop fucking complaining.”

Sean throws his hands in the air. “Sorry I’m the only one who gives a fuck, I guess!”

Tom is not a fighter. He tries hard not to lose his temper. Sean is probably lucky that’s the case and Tom’s not very good at this, because that means the swing Tom takes at his face doesn’t do any real damage. It does knock Sean flat on his ass on the floor, which is cool and horrifying and maybe mostly because of the beer.

They stare at each other for a minute, Tom standing with his hands clutching at the bottom of his jacket, Sean sprawled on the floor. Tom opens his mouth to try to find something to say, but Sean gets there first.

“Wow. Fuck you too, dude. Fucking… go to hell, Tom.”

**

It’s a really long two hours to Akron, followed by a really quiet night. Tom’s pretty sure the bassist is the only one who gets much sleep.

They can’t exactly avoid each other in the Robinsons’ house, but they can and do avoid making eye contact. Tom can read Max’s body pretty easily; he wants nothing to do with it because he’s not taking sides and he figures they’ll sort it out fast because they always do. Tom hates him for being smart and probably right. He doesn’t _want_ to sort everything out fast and clean, this time. He punched Sean in the face. That’s the sort of thing that should fester.

Mike is mostly confused and also busy with his parents and his girlfriend. Fair enough. Tom can’t blame the guy.

The bassist is asleep. That just leaves Tom and Sean, both staring at their phones and taking an excessive number of trips to the bathroom. Tom’s doing it to catch his breath in a room without sneaky eyes. He doesn’t know what Sean’s doing. Maybe he really does have to pee that much.

There’s a bruise on Sean’s cheekbone; faint, but definitely there. Just a hint of swelling. Tom did that.

He feels like shit, but he isn’t sure if that’s because he hit Sean, because Sean has been acting in a way that prompted hitting, or because touring is fucking hard and he’s too old for this shit but it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

**

Their set time is earlier, but it’s Saturday night, so he still gets in a call to Danielle.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “You’re non-syllabic.”

“I miss you.” It’s not a lie. It’s just unrelated.

“I miss you too. I’m really looking forward to Texas.”

He knows her well enough to know that she means seeing him, not SXSW, not seeing the band play. She actually hates both of those things.

“Maybe after this…” he starts, then trails off. Maybe after this, what? Get married? Have a baby? That’s not them.

“What?” She sounds distracted. Lucky.

“We should take another weekend away. Just the two of us. Borrow your boss’s place again.”

He can picture the corners of her eyes crinkling when she smiles. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Cool.” He clears his throat. “I gotta go. Gotta do my thing.”

“Have a good show.”

“Bye.” Having a good show might actually be _more_ annoying, because it’ll make Sean right. Fuck.

It’s a good thing he has his guitar.

**

The show _is_ good. Of course.

The acoustics are good, the crowd is big and friendly, Sean is drunk and expansive and full of love. Tom is so mad he can’t see straight.

Maybe frustrated is a better word. Strung-out on anxiety and beer. Tired. Filled with existential dread.

Mad sounds better.

They roll through the set of new songs, and Tom’s heart keeps pounding harder and louder, filling his head with an echo. Too much, too much. He stares down at his board and makes himself drag breath in between clenched teeth, zero in on the strings under his fingers, let the songs take him over and not think.

It isn’t working this time.

The last of the new songs ends and he moves, swinging his guitar up on its strap to get it off him, get it free. He sets it down by the amp and pops the cord free, the last bit of careful tending he can spare, and bolts off stage right, crossing the narrow strip of floor and through the doorway that marks off backstage from front of house.

Safe.

He goes all the way back to the storage space where their cases are and leans his head against the corrugated metal of the load-in door. It’s cold enough that his body jerks, instinct trying to get him to pull away, but he leans in harder. The discomfort is grounding. Safe.

Fuck.

Bolting off stage is kind of his own personal nightmare. Unprofessional. Stupid. Giving in to anxiety instead of keeping it caged up in his gut where it belongs. This show is a loss.

He stands for a few minutes, breathing in and out, letting his heart slow and his fear cool down into disappointment. When he blinks away the stillness and turns around, he realizes Max is in the doorway, looking at him.

“I’m cool,” Tom mutters. “Sorry.”

“We went ahead and called it,” Max says. “So no rush.”

“Called it?”

“The show.” Max leans against the door frame. “Lights are up, Mike is breaking down the drums. You can take your time.” He pauses a beat. “Sean is schmoozing.”

Tom thumps his head against the metal again. “Of course.”

“You gonna talk to him and fix this and get over it, or what?”

Tom glares at him, which as usual doesn’t even get a response. “Wow, what a set of options.”

“Dude.” Max rolls his eyes. “Just do it, okay?”

“Yeah.” He’s right, and there are no options. “Yeah, okay.”

**

_There’s just you and me now_ , Tom thinks, after the apologies and the hugs and the beer of great reconciliation. Sean’s leaning on him in the back seat of the van, on their way back to the Robinsons’. _Everything else has changed, but you and me, we’re the same._

_What if that changes, too? Then what do we do? Where do we go?_

But those aren’t the kind of questions he asks, even if they had the kind of answers Sean knows.

He closes his eyes and rests his head against Sean’s, breathing in sweat and whiskey, and they go on.

**Author's Note:**

> Set on the pre-SXSW 2014 tour. The sequence of tour dates and the set times are true. Everything else is speculation.


End file.
